EmpInfo Employment Verification Errors

A leasing office or an online lender pulls an EmpInfo verification, the number comes back wrong — or comes back with no income at all — and suddenly the apartment or the loan you were approved for is gone. EmpInfo, Inc. is a consumer reporting agency under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and it describes itself as a nationwide specialty consumer reporting agency. That means the report it sells about your job and your pay is a consumer report, you have a right to see it, and you have a right to make the company fix what is inaccurate. Our Employment Background Checks page puts verification reports in context alongside the rest of the screening industry.

What is EmpInfo?

EmpInfo, Inc. is an automated employment and income verification company based in San Jose, California. Instead of a landlord or lender calling your HR department, they submit a request to EmpInfo and get back a report on where you work, how long you have worked there, and what you earn. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lists EmpInfo among the consumer reporting companies consumers can request files from, and describes it as a company that "verifies and provides employment and income information to employers, lenders, rental housing managers and public assistance processors." On its own site, EmpInfo names consumer lenders and housing-technology companies — Prosper, Upgrade, LendingPoint, Open Road Lending, Divvy Homes, and Roostify among them — as verifiers that use the service.

A specialty CRA by its own description

EmpInfo's FCRA page states that "Under FCRA, EmpInfo is classified as a Nationwide Specialty Consumer Reporting Agency (NSCRA)." That classification is not a technicality. Specialty agencies that assemble and sell information about consumers carry the same accuracy and reinvestigation duties the big credit bureaus do, and the annual free-file-disclosure rules reach them as well. EmpInfo markets the service as free to employers, which is part of why so many payroll departments hand verification off to a company most of their employees have never heard of.

Where the data comes from

EmpInfo says it draws on an "ecosystem of HR, Payroll, and other third-party data sources" and can integrate with any HR or payroll system. It does not publish which systems, how often records refresh, or any accuracy standard. That matters for a simple reason: if you cannot tell where a number came from or how old it is, you cannot tell whether it is right — and neither can the landlord or lender reading it.

How to contact EmpInfo

EmpInfo publishes several channels. Use them to request your file, generate an authorization code, or put a dispute in writing:

• Mailing address: EmpInfo, Inc., 5900 Silver Creek Valley Road, Suite 150, San Jose, CA 95138
• Main line, and the number for a free report: 800-274-9694
• Verification department: 800-674-2974
• Authorization code by phone: 1-888-800-8190
• Email: support@empinfo.com for access, correction, and deletion requests
• Consumer portal: the employee section of empinfo.com, where you can log in, view your record, and block access

Four phone numbers — call the wrong one and you get routed away

Most reporting companies publish one consumer number. EmpInfo publishes at least four, each pointed at a different function, and the difference is not obvious from the outside. The 800-274-9694 line is the one tied to the free annual report request and to blocking access; 1-888-800-8190 is the authorization-code line. If you call the sales or general support number about a wrong wage figure, expect to be transferred. Whatever channel you use, follow up in writing — a phone call leaves you with no record, and an FCRA dispute is worth much more with a paper trail behind it.

Common EmpInfo errors we see

This is income and employment data, so the failure modes are payroll failure modes, not criminal-record failure modes:

• Income missing entirely, so the report says you are employed but shows no earnings
• A second job or concurrent employer absent from the file, understating what you actually make
• Self-employment, 1099, gig, and seasonal income mishandled or left out of the total
• Overtime, shift differentials, commissions, bonuses, or tips omitted — or double-counted into a figure you never earned
• Wrong pay frequency, so a biweekly figure is annualized as if it were semi-monthly, or an hourly rate is read as a salary
• Gross pay reported where net was expected, or the reverse
• A stale payroll snapshot presented as current, so a raise or a promotion you received months ago is invisible
• Wrong employer, or a mixed file pulling in someone else's record
• Wrong hire or separation dates, or a current job shown as ended
• An "unable to verify" result on a job you plainly hold, which a leasing agent or underwriter reads as a red flag about you

The authorization code gap: "employed, income unknown"

This is the single most practical thing on this page, and almost nobody explains it. EmpInfo's consumer flow asks for your employer name and Social Security number, and then treats the authorization code as optional — required only "if the Verification requires your earnings information." If you never generate that code, the verifier can receive confirmation that you are employed with no earnings attached. For a rental application or a loan file, "employed, income unknown" can be as fatal as a wrong number, and you may never learn that a code existed. You can generate one in the employee portal or by calling 1-888-800-8190. If you are mid-application, do it before the verifier pulls the report, not after.

Employer-branded pages can make you think EmpInfo holds a file it may not have

EmpInfo publishes landing pages named for large employers — an Amazon page, an Accenture page, an Apple page — that rank in search for queries like "amazon employment verification." The Amazon page itself carries a disclaimer stating that the information on it "is not an endorsement of EmpInfo's services by Amazon and is purely informational." We take EmpInfo at its word on that and do not treat those companies as clients. The point for you is the reverse one: a page like that can lead you to believe EmpInfo holds your employment file when it may not, and you can waste weeks disputing with the wrong company. Confirm which agency actually produced the report before you spend effort on it — the adverse action notice from the landlord or lender should name it.

What an EmpInfo error costs you

Verification is the last step, which is why the harm is so concentrated. You have already paid an application fee, already been pre-approved, and already made plans. Then a number nobody showed you first arrives, and the decision reverses.

Renters

Most leasing offices apply a rigid income-to-rent multiple. If EmpInfo understates your pay by leaving out overtime, a second job, or self-employment income, you drop below the cutoff on paper and the application is declined — or approved only with a large additional deposit, a co-signer, or a higher rent. Move-in dates collapse, holding deposits are forfeited, and the next application starts from zero.

Loan and refinance applicants

Consumer lenders use verified income to set approval, amount, and rate. An understated or missing income figure can turn an approval into a denial, shrink the amount offered, or reprice the loan against you. If the verification arrives late in the process, the harm can land after you have already relied on the approval.

Employees and job applicants

Where an employment verification is used for hiring, promotion, or retention, an incorrect separation date or a wrong prior-employer record can read as a résumé discrepancy. That is a different legal posture with additional employer duties attached, and it is worth flagging early if it describes your situation.

EmpInfo's track record with regulators

We report this honestly rather than dramatically. There is no public enforcement action against EmpInfo that we could find, and no federal FCRA case law against it that we could locate. What is genuinely unusual is the complaint record.

EmpInfo appears on the CFPB's official list of consumer reporting companies as a company from which you may request a report. Source. But a search of the CFPB's Consumer Complaint Database — which holds roughly 16.7 million complaint records — returns zero complaints naming EmpInfo, and the database's company list contains no EmpInfo entry at all. Source. A review of the Bureau's enforcement actions index likewise turns up nothing against the company. Source.

Zero complaints is not the same as a clean record

A zero in a database of that size can be read two ways. Either the company generates very few problems, or almost nobody who is harmed by an EmpInfo report knows that EmpInfo is a consumer reporting agency, knows the company's name at all, or knows the CFPB is where a complaint would go. Verification agencies are structurally under-represented in that database: the consumer usually deals with the landlord or lender, never with the agency, and the agency's name may appear nowhere except a line in a denial notice. EmpInfo's own consumer pages never mention the CFPB, and its FCRA page misnames the Federal Trade Commission as the "Fair Trade Commission." We would not treat the absence of complaints as evidence that verification data is accurate — and neither should an underwriter.

One further caveat we will state rather than hide: EmpInfo's terms fix venue in state or federal courts in Santa Clara County, California, and our review covered federal dockets. A state-court record, if one exists, would not show up in a federal docket search. Notably, those same terms contain no arbitration clause and no class-action waiver, and they cap the company's contractual liability at the greater of nothing or $100 — a cap that does not touch the statutory remedies the FCRA provides.

Your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act

Because EmpInfo assembles and sells information about you to third parties making decisions about you, the FCRA governs what it does.

Accuracy, your file, and reinvestigation

EmpInfo must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information it reports (§1681e(b)). You have the right to disclosure of the information in your file on proper identification (§1681g), and a nationwide specialty agency must provide a free file disclosure once every 12 months on request (§1681j(a)(1)(C)). When you dispute the completeness or accuracy of an item, the agency must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation, generally within 30 days, and delete or correct information it cannot verify (§1681i).

What EmpInfo's own pages do and do not say about disputes

Read EmpInfo's FCRA page closely and you find this: "if you believe that any information about you is listed incorrectly, you may contact your employer to notify and request them correction. If you require, we can block access to your information during the period of such dispute or investigation." What that paragraph offers is suppression of the record and a referral back to your employer. What it does not describe is a direct dispute to EmpInfo, a reinvestigation, a 30-day timeline, or a dispute address. Blocking access is not correction — and to a lender, a blocked file can look identical to no verification at all. If you are told to go work it out with HR, you can still send a written dispute to the agency, and you should.

If a landlord or lender turned you down

The user of the report has its own duties. A lender, credit issuer, or landlord that takes adverse action based in whole or in part on a consumer report must send an adverse action notice that identifies the reporting agency and tells you how to get a free copy of the report and dispute it (§1681m). If the verification was used for employment purposes, you are entitled to a copy of the report and a summary of your rights before the decision becomes final (§1681b(b)(3)). Ask for the notice in writing if you never received one.

How to dispute an EmpInfo verification

1. Find out what the verifier actually received. Ask the landlord, lender, or employer for the report and the adverse action notice, and request your own free file from EmpInfo at 800-274-9694 or support@empinfo.com.
2. Check whether an authorization code was ever generated. If the report showed employment with no income, that gap — not a wrong number — may be the whole problem.
3. List each inaccuracy in specifics: employer, hire date, separation date, pay rate, pay frequency, and every category of income that was omitted or double-counted.
4. Assemble proof — recent pay stubs, W-2s or 1099s, an employment letter on letterhead, and bank deposits that corroborate the amounts.
5. Send a written dispute to EmpInfo at 5900 Silver Creek Valley Road, Suite 150, San Jose, CA 95138, and by email, asking expressly for a reinvestigation and correction rather than a block. Enclose copies and keep the originals.
6. Ask HR to correct the payroll record too, if that is the source, and notify the landlord or lender in writing so the file stays open.
7. If the record is not corrected, or the mistake already cost you the apartment, the loan, or the job, contact an FCRA attorney.

This information is general and is not legal advice for your specific situation.

Did a wrong EmpInfo verification cost you an apartment or a loan?

Employment and income verifications are consumer reports, and the companies that sell them have to follow the FCRA's accuracy and reinvestigation rules. If an EmpInfo report understated your pay, left out a job, showed no income at all, reported the wrong employer or the wrong dates, or came back "unable to verify," and you lost housing, credit, or a job because of it, you may be entitled to damages. The review costs nothing and we take these cases nationwide.

Admitted in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; available to appear pro hac vice in other federal courts.

How The Kim Law Firm helps

We are consumer-protection lawyers who handle Fair Credit Reporting Act cases across the country, including the verification cases most firms never see. On an EmpInfo matter, that means getting the report the verifier actually received, reconstructing your real earnings from payroll records, sending a dispute that demands a reinvestigation rather than a suppressed file, and pursuing both the reporting agency and any user of the report that skipped its own obligations.

We help people whose verification data is wrong — missing income, the wrong employer, the wrong dates, a false separation, or a failed verification of a job that plainly exists. We are not the right firm for anyone trying to make accurate income or employment history look better than it is. If your file is inaccurate, we pursue the correction and any damages available, and you pay nothing unless we recover for you. If your problem is with a different verification company, our pages on The Work Number and Truework cover the two largest players in this market.

When your employer's record and the verification disagree

An automated verification is only as good as what the employer loaded, and employers make clerical mistakes constantly: a termination date entered when someone changed departments, a rehire never recorded, a promotion that updated the title but not the pay field, a leave of absence coded as a separation. The lender or landlord reading the report has no way to know any of that. They see a mismatch between what you told them and what the database says, and the mismatch reads as a misrepresentation by you.

• CCC Verify — selling confirmations of where you work, how long you have worked there and what you earn.
• Truework — supplying the same confirmations to mortgage lenders, auto lenders, landlords and screening firms.
• The Work Number — built from records employers supply directly, which is exactly where this category of error originates.
• Experian Verify — a verification product sold into mortgage lending, screening and government programs.
• Pinwheel — reading identity, income and employment data from payroll platforms through a direct connection.

Go to two places at once. Ask your employer's payroll or HR department to correct its own record, and dispute the report with the verification company in writing, attaching a pay stub or a letter on company letterhead. Fixing only the employer's file leaves the wrong version circulating until the next refresh, and fixing only the report leaves the source ready to reassert it.

A different company verifying your income or employment? We also handle The Work Number report errors, Truework verification errors, and Experian Verify income verification errors — and you can start with our overview of the major background check companies.

Frequently asked questions

My EmpInfo verification came back with no income — is that an error?

Often it is a process gap rather than a data error. EmpInfo treats the earnings authorization code as optional, so a verifier can receive employment confirmation with no wage information attached. Generate a code in the employee portal or by calling 1-888-800-8190, then ask the landlord or lender to re-request the verification. If income is still missing or wrong afterward, dispute it in writing.

EmpInfo told me to ask my employer to fix it. Do I have to?

Correcting the payroll record at the source is usually a good idea, because that is where the bad data originates. But it is not a substitute for your rights against the reporting agency. You can dispute directly with EmpInfo in writing and ask for a reinvestigation and correction, and you should keep proof of that request regardless of what HR does.

Should I use the "block access" option?

Be careful with it. Blocking suppresses the record; it does not fix it. If a lender or leasing office then requests a verification and gets nothing back, the outcome can look the same as a failed verification. Blocking may make sense in a fraud situation, but if your goal is an approval on accurate numbers, correction is what you want.

How do I get my free EmpInfo report?

Request it by phone at 800-274-9694 or through the employee portal, and be ready to prove your identity. Note that EmpInfo's FCRA page states the annual free report unconditionally while its employee page conditions it on your employer participating in the platform. If you are turned down on that basis, make the request in writing and keep the response.

My second job is missing from the verification. Can I do anything?

Yes. A verification that reports only one of your two employers gives a materially incomplete picture of your income, and incompleteness is disputable, not just outright error. Provide pay stubs from both jobs to the verifier directly and file a written dispute so the file itself reflects reality.

Can I sue EmpInfo over a verification error?

Possibly. If the report about you was inaccurate, if the company did not use reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy, or if it did not reasonably reinvestigate after you disputed, and that caused you harm, the FCRA may provide a claim for damages. Outcomes depend on the specific facts and no lawyer can guarantee one.

I had never heard of EmpInfo before the denial. Does that hurt my case?

No. Most people in this situation have never heard of the company, which is precisely why so few complaints about verification agencies ever get filed anywhere. Your rights under the FCRA do not depend on having known the company was holding data about you.

Is the case review really free?

Yes. There is no cost to have us look at the report and the denial, and we work on contingency, so you pay nothing unless we recover for you.

Where we practice, and what to do if you are somewhere else

The Kim Law Firm is licensed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and that is where we handle matters directly.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act is a federal statute. It applies the same way in every state, it is enforced in federal court, and the deadlines and remedies do not change when you cross a state line. So the answer to "does this apply to me in Ohio" is yes — but the answer to "can you represent me in Ohio" depends on the case and on where it would be filed.

If you are outside Pennsylvania and New Jersey, contact us anyway. Some matters can be handled from here. Some are better sent to a consumer lawyer admitted where you are, and we will tell you that plainly rather than let a deadline run while you wait. Either way you will get an answer, and the review costs nothing.

The one thing that does not wait is the clock. A claim under the Act generally must be brought within two years of the date you discover the violation, and in no event more than five years after the violation occurred. Finding out late does not extend the outside limit.